call her starlight } . elvaina standalone

In the night, I will play to chase away the darkness that dares bite my flesh. It threatens me, with a glint of its bared fangs. It whispers in my ear, and it says that it will engulf me, consume me and all of my bones whole. But I have learned to bow to no one, I have learned to fear nothing, not even fear itself. I try not to tremble; I try not to give in. It is Jequirity, her soul melded into my music, that keeps me from falling apart- glass girl, glass heart.

In the night, I will play to pray for Amerika. Bow against strings, hand against heart, I will pour it all into their ears until my arms and hands and shoulders ache as if I have held up the sky from the break of the gold upon the horizon to its death and the reign of the silver and blackness.

In the night, I will play, as I do now. Softly, gently, with every heartstring of mine woven into every note. It is true that I am broken, shattered to pieces. (Glass girl, glass heart.) But my pieces are not scattered on the floor like ash in the aftermath of flame. They flow, in a river, in a stream, bred from my violin.

Everything has a name, a voice of its own. Even Wolfsbane's violin- she named it Jequirity, carved the letters into the smooth wood in all of her agony. I suppose mine should have a name, too, but I could never bear to choose my dead sister's name. I would only see the end, and a ghost, when I stole a glance, not the beginning.

I cannot comprehend how Wolfsbane can stand it.

Perhaps it makes her feel safe when she holds it, when she carves another song into the air. Perhaps it is how she tried to patch up her wounds, riddled with salt and tears. But that is not how I wish to heal. That is not how I wish to live. Her death is an open wound; her name is salt in my cuts.

I stole a knife from the kitchen earlier that day, when the house had succumbed to utter silence and I was slipping in solitude. It rests in my hand- my fingers are closed tightly around its handle, but I do not tremble. With caution- my eyes flit down to my arm- I carve nine letters neatly into the smooth wood of the front of my violin. I immortalize them, the three girls made constellations in death. Jequirity, Hannah, Saxton. I immortalize them, and their light, with several glides of a blade.

Starlight, I call it. Starlight, I etch into my violin,

so I will never forget.

MILLION STARS UP IN THE SKY
FORMED A TIGER'S EYE
THAT LOOKED DOWN ON MY FACE
OUT OF TIME AND OUT OF PLACE